In 1998, Nathaniel Dunigan decided that what he really wanted to do with his life was save Ugandan orphans living with HIV/AIDS. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, which made him the right man in the perfect state of mind.

“I was young and foolish, thank goodness,” said the 39-year-old Dunigan, who received his master’s degree in education from Harvard and is now a Ph.D. student at the University of San Diego. “I knew it would be hard, but I had no idea how hard. But I felt like this is what I was meant to do, and I feel really, really blessed to have found my purpose.”

That purpose turned out to be AidChild, the nonprofit organization Dunigan founded 13 years ago. The group now has six campuses in Uganda, where children get food, housing, medical care and tutoring. And thanks to its various businesses, AidChild earns nearly 70 percent of its own income. It is life-changing and gratifying and not at all what Dunigan ever expected.

The son of missionaries, Dunigan grew up in the Arizona portion of the sprawling Navajo Nation Reservation, where he learned invaluable lessons about social justice and the importance of education and community. He went on to study Spanish and political science at the University of Arizona, which came in handy when Dunigan became an intern for then-Arizona Gov. Fife Symington III.

Dunigan was the governor’s deputy director and a budding expert in border issues when he asked to be included in a trip to Uganda for an AIDS prevention project. After that 1998 trip, his plans changed. For good.

“I went with the idea that I knew a lot about AIDS prevention, but when we got there, I realized that the prevention message was far too late for many people, especially the children,” Dunigan said, remembering a pivotal moment when he looked into face of a dying boy and decided prevention education would not be enough.

“That was the moment that changed my life,” Dunigan said. “I hoped that I could find someone who would pay me to do this, but then I realized that if it was going to be done, I would have to do it.”

So in 2000, he quit his job, sold everything and moved to Uganda — with $3,500, a friend’s old laptop and a digital camera donated by a Buddhist group. With the help of local elders, medical experts and an abandoned missionary compound Dunigan was able to rent for $200 a month, AidChild was born. The group’s first two orphans arrived within two weeks.

With photos taken on the donated camera and fundraising pitches written on the laptop, Dunigan began drumming up money. But after watching the way well-meaning projects on the Navajo reservation died when funding ran out, Dunigan decided that AidChild needed to be self-sustaining.

An early egg business didn’t turn much of a profit, so Dunigan got funding to open the Equation Cafe and Gallery, which still sells drinks, food, gifts and artwork to tourists crossing the equator in Kayabwe. The AidChild business roster now includes an overnight guesthouse, a rooftop club and elegant restaurants, including Olubugo, an Entebbe eatery funded by a grant from local restaurateur James Brennan’s Enlightened Hospitality Group.